


Nightmares

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [15]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:19:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She wakes up with her heart pounding and a scream caught in her throat, eyes darting around the unfamiliar room and lungs gasping for air as she tries to get her bearings before she remembers that this is Spencer's apartment, that she's on his couch, that she's actually safe and nothing is here to hurt her.





	Nightmares

She wakes with a scream caught in her throat.

It's too dark for her too really see anything, but that doesn't stop her from realizing that she's not in her bed, and she doesn't know where she is, and that something bad could be lurking in the shadows and she would have no idea that it was coming for her.  Beatrice scrambles backward before she gives herself time to even try to think of a plan, hands twisting for purchase in blanket puddled in her lap and back bumping into the end of the couch.  Her heart is going too fast, and her lungs don't have enough air, and she is still trying to pull herself out of her dream- the one with the screams and the knife and the girls she can't save, the one where the BAU never finds her and she's buried in that grave, dirt underneath her fingernails and muddy water filling up her nose until she can't do anything but breathe it in.  

She always wakes before the end, but she has a pretty good idea of where it's going.

"Beatrice."  The voice is soft, but it's still like sandpaper against skin, too sudden and unexpected under the current circumstances.  "It's okay.  Everything's okay."

She jerks away from the noise, but then something in her head recognizes it ( _spencer, spencer, this is spencer's apartment, you fell asleep here, this is safe here, you remember what being safe is like, don't you?_ _)_ and she snaps back into the reality that no, nothing is wrong.  It was just a dream, one of those awful ones that she has so often.  "Spencer."  She falls back against the couch, kicks her way out of the covers and breathes in deep.  Beatrice is too hot, all of a sudden, and she wants to run to the window and throw it open so she can feel the night air on her face and have the sounds of the city remind her that she isn't alone.  But that would look even weirder than sitting all tense and upset on the couch, so she stays put.  "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay."  He's kneeling at her feet.  She can see the nest of blankets he had made in the armchair and wishes that she had thought to drag them back to the bed before either of them fell asleep.  It's better, when he's there with her.  "Bad dream?"

"Yeah."  She chokes on the word, suspiciously close to crying, and then starts laughing again.  Because this is embarrassing.  It's horrible, actually.  "You could say that."

He watches her in the dark, because they always seem to have their important conversations in the dark, still, even though Beatrice had become determined to change that.  She's not sure if it's become a personal habit or just a result of the situations they find themselves in.  "Want to talk about it?"   _No, she doesn't._ He seems to know the answer without her saying it, maybe because he knows what it feels like himself, or maybe because its written all over her face.  "Do they happen often?"

"A couple times a week."  She mumbles out the answer, but he hears her anyways.  Beatrice didn't like this, because it feels too much like being weak, like being vulnerable, like showing a part of herself she wasn't ready to give away.  "It's stupid."

"It's not."  He sounded like it hurt him, to watch her, and she doesn't like that, either.  She wants to run, but he had promised her that he wouldn't turn away when things got scary for him, so she was trying her best to do the same.  "I have them, too."

She slides off the couch and onto the floor beside him.  Neither of them say anything, just stare at the television screen, which had stayed turned on and was now playing re runs of some crime show they both found rather stupid.  (Her because she didn't think anyone should find joy from crime, and Spencer because  _the justice system just doesn't work that fast, Beatrice, who are they kidding_.)  "Sometimes I think I'm going crazy."  She doesn't look at him when she talks, whispering the words.  They hang between them for a moment before he fumbles in the dark for her hand, gripping it tight.

"You're not."  Spencer has enough crazy people in his life.  Enough of wondering if this last case would finally tip the scales and he'd succumb to whatever poison was waiting in his DNA, too.  And now here she was, having a mental break down on his living room floor.  "It's not crazy."

"That life wasn't good for me." She gasps out, finally admitting what she didn't want to say to anyone else.  "All the people.  All the awful things I had to watch and listen to and how I could never,  _ever_ stop it.  And I think it broke something in me."

"You're not broken."

"How do you know?"  She was crying, just a little, tears slipping down her cheeks and landing on the floor.  "I could be."

"I'd love you anyways."  He's gripping tight to her hand, enough that maybe it should hurt, but she needs that now, some sort of pain that she can find bearable.  "And I'm not going to let you fall apart."

"You might not have a choice."  She thinks of that hidden journal back in her bedroom, the one with the pretty words about not so pretty things, about the nights spent in the bathtub because she thought that hiding there made her  _safe,_ about how she would play games with the world, like if she saw five of these particular birds on her way to work today everyone would come home alive.  

"Then I'll put you back together."  He moves closer, a small enough shift that she wouldn't have noticed except for the fact that every cell in her body was paying attention to his.  "Every single time."


End file.
